


Catch 22

by orphan_account



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-06
Updated: 2008-06-06
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15387513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: If nothing else, he can choose the way he will die.





	Catch 22

The first pill he took after he had killed the woman.

Takaya had found him huddled against the side of a building in the seedy area of Port Island Station during the Dark Hour a couple of days after the incident. Shinjiro's Persona was clearly visible, its form hunched over is summoner. Before, Castor had come and gone in an instant to attack or defend – but now he wouldn't go away, wouldn't _leave_ and Shinjiro could feel his presence looming over him, suffocating, painful. There was a sharp pain in his back where claws dug into his flesh, not moving, just pressing.

“You are in despair.” Shinjiro would soon find out that Takaya was never much one for greetings.

“Fuck off.” Shinjiro's head buried in his arms hid a blotched and red face. At some other time he might have been shocked to see another human aware during the Dark Hour, but right now, he just didn't have the energy.

Shinjiro would never spend much time trying to understand Takaya or his motives, but if he had looked up at that moment he might have seen something like sympathy cross the lanky boy's face. “If this continues, you could die.”

“I don't care.”

“Really, now?”

 _Leave me the fuck_ alone. Shinjiro raised his head and glared at Takaya, and Castor screamed, tumbling towards Takaya in a blur of sharp edges and hatred. Shinjiro gasped, skittering forwards on his hands and knees and reaching out, trying to stop it – _fuck not again, not_ again _I didn't mean it really I didn't want to I just can't –_

But this time it was different, and Takaya was not a helpless woman. Takaya's Persona defended him and the other boy was barely scratched. Shinjiro sank to the ground again, weak in his relief. “I didn't...” he couldn't choke out the rest.

A small, cylindrical bottle was tossed to the ground, rolling within Shinjiro's reach. “Those will protect you from your Persona,” Takaya said. “But remember that your Persona is you. When you weaken your Persona... you weaken your life.” He barked a laugh. “Choose which way you want to die.”

Takaya left, and Shinjiro was left alone with a bottle of pills. The first one he took, dry and choking, made all the pain go away.

xxx

A Persona is part of the self, the soul, if you will, all the little moments of emotion brought together to make an incarnation of feeling. Emotion is transitory by nature – be it a temper tantrum, a moment of bliss or a passing infatuation, everything emerges and then fades, its effects remaining but the entity itself gone. An Evoker forces a moment of intense emotion upon the user, pushing those emotions out of the body for an instant into a tangible, powerful form.

But some people aren't strong enough for that.

When anger turns to rage, when jealousy turns to hatred and when sadness turns to depression, that's when the Persona lingers, hovering, unable to dissipate like a regular passing feeling. It becomes all-consuming, uncontrollable.

Shinjiro learned more about Personas on his own and through Strega than he ever had through the petty bits of information that Mitsuru sifted to him. (He suspected that she really knew nothing; none of them knew anything. They just used their power, took it for granted, didn't understand or care where it came from. They didn't have to; it was so easy for them.) Because Strega had had their Personas forced upon them, they were weak. Decisions must come from within, not without. The more Shinjiro learned about Strega, the more he despised them for their twisted values and despised himself for being so much like them.

_Why did you start living in a dorm?_

Akihiko had been evasive about questions concerning his new living arrangements. Some days he would come into class yawning and exhausted as if he hadn't slept a wink the previous night. When Shinjiro asked why Akihiko was so tired, the only excuse he ever heard was, 'I couldn't sleep.'

_Shinji! You're awake?!_

Shinjiro had been out late at night at Port Island Station – he often went there to think – people there didn't know him, wouldn't bother him. There something strange had happened at midnight, and well – long story short, he saw Polydeuces and everything about why Akihiko had been so strange became clear. Akihiko seemed relieved to no longer have to hide from his best friend.

_Castor!_

Not long after that his own Persona awakened. At the time he had been ecstatic about the marvelous coincidence, but in retrospect it was painfully obvious. Polydeuces, Castor, _ha_. Shinjiro's Persona hadn't awakened because he had some kind of latent power or because he had been 'chosen', not from any kind of personal resolution – Castor had awakened for one reason and one reason only: because he had wanted to follow Akihiko.

_I'm such a fool._

Everything became so much clearer with a little distance. Up close everything became muddled and blurry, with thoughts and feelings crossing each other. Especially now, now that everything was a hundred times worse and it wasn't just about him and his stupid issues, it was about this monster that came out of his mind that could hurt and kill, _would_ hurt and kill if he couldn't keep pressing it down – Shinjiro had always been coarse, abrasive, he knew sometimes he hurt people but really it was their own fault if they couldn't take it and he didn't want anything to do with them anyway – but now his thoughts and his words had become form, form that did more than just reject a girl with a love confession (not that he got as many of _those_ as Akihiko did). He couldn't stop thinking, couldn't stop feeling. All he could do was take the goddamn pills.

xxx

Akihiko had ripped through the city looking for Shinjiro, that first time. Once Shinjiro hadn't showed up at the dorm or at school for three days, Akihiko started cutting class to go into town looking for his friend. After almost a week, Mitsuru had given him a wake-up slap and forced him to return to classes. Akihiko had conceded. “He'll come back if and when he chooses to,” she had said. “You can't force him to do anything. All you can do is wait.”

Shinjiro had been both relieved and disappointed when Akihiko stopped looking for him. He hadn't tried to sort out what that meant at the time; he had been to busy trying to keep the pieces inside his head together and getting food into his stomach.

Shinjiro had no money and no place to go. He didn't know how to ask for help and didn't want to. The only thing that kept him from starving to death in the first month was Strega. Despite the fact that they rarely talked with each other and had a relationship bordering somewhere between apathy and dislike, Takaya, Jin, and Chidori would nonetheless provide him with cheap food that 'was extra' or 'just lying around' or 'we wouldn't eat anyway'. Underneath the veneer of carelessness, the three of them knew what it was like to have nothing, and perhaps saw as much of themselves in Shinjiro as he saw of himself in them.

Eventually Shinjiro learned how to survive on his own, though Strega continued to supply him with pills. There were food banks, homeless shelters, abandoned buildings. One week in the winter when there was a freak snowstorm Takaya had let him stay in Strega's apartment at night. Shinjiro hated charity, but he learned how to swallow his pride and take it when necessary. He found that with the pills he needed to eat and sleep very little, and that made everything easier. The pills made everything easier, really. The thing that made it harder was Akihiko.

Akihiko had stopped obsessing over it, but he didn't stop looking for Shinjiro. About a month after Shinjiro had left Iwatodai dorms, Akihiko found him in Port Island Station by the back door of the bar.

Shinjiro played it casual. “Hey.”

Akihiko was hurt, Shinjiro could tell that without even looking. “I've been looking for you all month.”

“I know.”

Akihiko stepped towards Shinjiro, reaching out for his friend's hand. Shinji flinched back, yanking his hand out of reach. “Shinji –”

“Don't come here anymore.”

Suddenly Akihiko was angry, just the way Shinjiro preferred it. “Fine. If that's the way you want it, then so be it.” Shinjiro didn't watch as Akihiko left.

That night, Shinjiro tried taking two pills at once.

xxx

Akihiko never gave up coming to see Shinjiro. The boxer learned all of Shinjiro's haunts, and it became increasingly difficult to avoid him. Sometimes Shinjiro wasn't sure if he wanted to.

At first Akihiko begged Shinjiro to come back to the dorm, telling him that it hadn't been his fault, that no one was mad at him and why was he doing this? At Shinjiro's stubborn silence, however, Akihiko eventually stopped asking. He would just come to Shinjiro and talk about things that had been happening lately, small things. About anything else Akihiko didn't ask, and Shinjiro didn't tell. Nevertheless, after each time Shinjiro saw his old friend, he took an extra pill to calm himself down. The only reason he was even capable of seeing Akihiko at all at this point was the flat emotional state that the pills reduced him to – he could be detached, he could not care. The one time he had run into Akihiko after not taking his pills for a couple of days, he came away from it so rattled that he had had to take four pills just to stop shaking.

 _Why do you fuck me up like this?_ Shinjiro pushed back the answers that fed into his mind. He didn't want to think about it, couldn't handle that line of thought. It was bad enough when Akihiko looked at him sideways sometimes, out of the corners of his eyes when he thought Shinjiro didn't notice, and he would rub his wrists in that nervous way he did even when they weren't sore and then look away again because he _knew_ he couldn't afford to push certain boundaries.

But then Akihiko went and threw it all to hell.

For once Shinjiro had gotten himself an apartment – well actually, a friend of an acquaintance he'd done some odd jobs for was out of town and needed someone to take care of the cat and watch the place – but he had a place and he had made the mistake of inviting Akihiko into it. It was all downhill from there. Things that couldn't be said in public come easier in private, and somehow it ended up with Akihiko's hands in his hair and Akihiko's mouth pressed against his. It would have been so much easier to say no if Shinjiro had _wanted_ to say no, if Akihiko's touch didn't make him want to throw the last two years to hell and fucking join SEES already just so he could be near his best... friend. Or whatever they were supposed to be now.

Akihiko's bare back pressed to his chest was warm, but Shinjiro could never forget the feeling of his Persona on _his_ back, sharp, painful. As much as he wanted this, fuck, even on his pills he wanted it so bad – Akihiko being here at all was just too much.

“I l–”

“Shut up.” Shinjiro cut him off. _No you don't, don't fucking lie to me. You_ can't _._ Akihiko was strong, amazing, he could make everything his if he wanted to (even Shinji, Shinji had been his since a long time ago) and Shinjiro was just a dying fuck-up with nothing, no one, and no future. Why the hell didn't Akihiko know what was good for him? Why did Akihiko keep coming back?

 _Because you want him to come back. You_ want _him to worry, to get on your case, to beg you to join SEES again, you want him to be preoccupied with your shit because you're a needy little fuck who doesn't have the basic social skills necessary to say you love your best friend._

After Akihiko left, Shinji took the rest of the bottle he had. He didn't know how many pills were in it then. It took a little while for it to kick in, but once it had it sent both his mind into a state of incredible, detached numbness. He lay on the floor for a while and felt like he was looking down at his body, watching himself sleep. Was this what his Persona saw? Everything looked so different from up here. For once, every last feeling, every stab of guilt and shame and longing was gone and he was apart from everything.

...Then he... he didn't know if he woke up from sleeping or if he had been awake the entire time, however long it had been, hours or days, but suddenly it all hit his body and he was violently ill. Somehow he stumbled into the bathroom and knelt before the toilet before throwing up – there wasn't much food in it, mostly it was a viscous, black-red substance, the same thing that poured out of Shadows when you killed them, the stuff that oozed out of the corners of Tartarus. It stuck in his throat, the vomit acidic but the ooze sickly sweet, the taste prompting him to continue heaving until there was nothing left to give.

As the ooze left him so did the numbness and everything came rushing back twice as hard as before. He could feel Castor digging into his back again as he cried like he hadn't since almost two years ago now, leaning his forehead against the cool toilet seat as he gripped the sides of the toilet with his hands, trying to keep himself from sinking into the floor. Amidst everything that ran into his head now that the blockade of pills was no longer there, he could only hang onto one single thought, one desire to keep him afloat in the flood. He wanted Akihiko to be there, to hold back his hair and rub his back and give him stupid empty re-assurances, to be worried about him and care for him and be completely absorbed in him. He could stand all the shame in the world, could stand Akihiko seeing the complete wreck that he was if only he were _here._

...But he wasn't. And alone, Shinjiro was too weak. He didn't want to feel like this, couldn't _handle_ feeling like this, knew it had to end.

Shinjiro knew that he would die soon, and was no longer afraid.

 


End file.
